Madjid Mohit

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Madjid Mohit , also spelled Madjit Mohit (* December 1961 in Tehran ), is an Iranian - German author , translator and publisher . He came to Germany as a political refugee from Iran in the early 1990s and now lives and works in Bremen .

Life

In Iran (1961–1990)

Madjid Mohit comes from an Iranian publishing family based in the capital Tehran. After decades of preparation, his grandfather launched the first Persian- German dictionary , which was published by Madjid's father in 1958 . The Mohit Publications in Tehran was a leader in the field of encyclopedias and textbooks , but also published translations of Western literature , beginning mostly by French authors and later works such as George Orwell's Animal farm . After graduating from high school, Mohit was the third generation to join his father’s publishing house, but the publishing work was soon increasingly difficult and endangered by the censorship and repression of the Islamic Republic of Iran since the revolution of 1979 against Iranian writers and private publishers. Books could only be brought out insofar as this was permitted by the mullahs of the Iranian censorship authorities and if sufficient paper was allocated. As a 19-year-old Mohit experienced how several thousand copies had to be destroyed by Gabriel Garcia Márquez Hundreds of Years of Solitude . From then on, the publisher gave its authors aliases.

At the first Gulf War Mohit took time, as a medical orderly in part, and then returned to his own family publishing house. After the “ fatwa ” of early 1989, the death threat from revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini against the Indo-British author Salman Rushdie , the situation worsened and publishing work finally came to a standstill. As the interrogations increased, Mohit decided to flee his home country into exile .

In Germany (since 1990)

In 1990, Mohit arrived in Germany with forged papers via Cyprus and Egypt, where the Federal Border Guard prevented him from continuing his journey at Frankfurt Airport. He actually wanted to go to Canada because he knew English and French and didn't speak German at the time. There followed three years of waiting in the asylum seekers' home until his asylum application was approved. In the meantime Mohit learned the German language and later did internships in print shops.

After living in Vechta , Lower Saxony, for two years , Mohit came to Bremen in 1996, where he worked for one year as a cultural advisor for the Bremen umbrella association of foreign cultural associations, which has now been dissolved . V. (DAB) found. Mohit also published a German-Persian magazine and founded the Sujet Verlag in 1996 . The main aim of founding the publishing house was to publish literature by Iranian authors who were not allowed to publish in their country. In the basement of what was then the DAB association's domicile in Bremen- Gröpelingen was an old printing press that he was able to rent and initially use. So he took on various printing jobs, such as for flyers, posters, menus and a district newspaper, in order to maintain and expand the publishing house. After relocation of the small publishing house to Bremer " neighborhood " made Mohit a Heidelberg offset printing press, while in Bremen today publishing seat Bahnhofsvorstadt working in modern digital printing process.

In his Sujet Verlag, Mohit now publishes works by politically persecuted writers, most of whom live in exile in Germany, as well as Persian literature in German and German literature in Persian. In addition to these prose works , other publications focus on poetry , children's books and non-fiction .

Mohit created the term “aerial root literature”, which he defines as cross-border literature and in which, in contrast to exile literature, “the enriching aspect of exile is in the foreground”. It works regardless of location and is written “by authors who live and are on the move with two or more languages ​​and cultures”.

On November 11, 2015, Madjid Mohit was awarded the Hermann Kesten Prize , an award donated by the PEN writers' association for special services to persecuted authors.

In 2018 Mohit was honored as Bremen's “ Diversity Personality 2018”. The jury's reasoning was, among other things, that “for over 20 years he has given a voice to politically persecuted authors from Iran, African and Arab countries, in which human rights are barely respected, and translates and publishes them, but also multilingual ones Promotes authors ”.

In addition to his publishing activities, Mohit writes poems and texts. He is also active as a musician and sets poems to music that he has translated from German into Persian and from Persian into German. Occasionally he takes on the musical accompaniment with vocals and guitar at readings.

Mohit lives in Bremen.

Awards

Publications

as an author

  • Madjid Mohit: Weser . In: Natalia Sadovnik (Ed.): Bremen condensed . 1st edition. Sujet Verlag, Bremen 2013, ISBN 978-3-944201-20-7 (poetry anthology; with pictures by Phil Porter).
  • Madjid Mohit: Madjid Mohit - Poems . In: Gerrit Wustmann (Ed.): Here is Iran! Persian poetry in German-speaking countries . Updated and expanded new edition. Sujet Verlag, Bremen 2017, ISBN 978-3-96202-000-2 , p. 137-140 (poetry anthology).
  • Madjid Mohit: The one you can trust · Clouds, wind and sea · In the sweat of my brow · Dawn . In: Angelika Sinn (Ed.): This is how you take life with you . 1st edition. Sujet Verlag, Bremen 2019, ISBN 978-3-96202-050-7 , pp. 19-20, 52, 70-71, 100 (anthology).

Translations

  • Seyed Ali Salehi: Born into a tangled song. Poems . Translated from Persian by Madjid Mohit. Cartoons: Lothar Bührmann. (=  Edition of modern Iranian poetry ). 1st edition. Sujet Verlag, Bremen 2013, ISBN 978-3-944201-00-9 .
  • Inge Buck : Under the snow. Poems . Collages: Monica Schefold. Translation into Persian: Madjid Mohit. 2nd Edition. Sujet Verlag, Bremen 2017, ISBN 978-3-944201-44-3 (German, Persian).

Radio

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Henning Bleyl: Bookman in Exile. In: taz.de . December 1, 2006, accessed January 14, 2020 .
  2. ^ A b c d Sarah Judith Hofmann: A publisher in exile: PEN center honors Madjid Mohit. In: dw.com . November 12, 2015, accessed January 14, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Johannes Schnös: Exile literature. People with aerial roots. In: sueddeutsche.de . August 11, 2011, accessed January 10, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e Nina Willborn: Publisher Madjid Mohit receives Bremen Diversity Prize 2019. In: weser-kurier.de . December 10, 2018, accessed January 10, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Inge Buck : Hermann Kesten Prize of the German PEN Center, 11.11.15 in Darmstadt. Laudation for Madjid Mohit by Inge Buck. (PDF; 1.108 kB) In: pen-deutschland.de. PEN Center Germany , November 11, 2015, accessed on January 14, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Madjid Mohit: I manage the Sujet Verlag, which specializes in aerial root literature. In: orbanism.com. November 16, 2014, accessed on January 14, 2020 (interview with Madjid Mohit).
  7. ↑ Ulrich Rüdenauer : Interview with subject publisher Madjid Mohit. "Luftwurzelauthors are on the move in several languages". In: boersenblatt.net . February 2, 2018, accessed January 10, 2020 .
  8. ^ Madjid Mohit: Sujet Verlag >>  The publisher. In: sujetverlag.de. Retrieved January 10, 2020 (self-reported on the publisher's website).
  9. ↑ a b Prize winners of the Hermann Kesten Prize and the Hermann Kesten Sponsorship Prize. In: pen-deutschland.de . Retrieved January 10, 2020 .
  10. ↑ a b Diversity Prize Bremen: Madjid Mohit - Diversity Personality 2018. In: diversity-preis-bremen.de. Retrieved January 10, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Mohit, Madjid
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mohit, Madjit
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iranian-German author, translator and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH December 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Tehran , Iran